Jul. 5, 2013

Floyd L. Moreland rides on the historic 1910 carousel in Seaside Heights. Moreland spearheaded the restoration of the carousel after learning it was about to be dismantled and sold. / Peter Ackerman/Staff Photographer

Much of Moreland's collection of carousel items was destroyed when superstorm Sandy hit, but several pieces survived. / Peter Ackerman/Staff Photographer

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Floyd L. Moreland was ready for what he always saw as the third stage of his life: a quiet retirement.

But that was before superstorm Sandy roared ashore in Ortley Beach, sending 5 ½ feet of storm surge through Moreland’s Seventh Avenue home. The ocean water destroyed almost all of the possessions he’d accumulated during the first two phases of his life.

“We walked up the street, carrying our one suitcase,” Moreland said of the cold November day when he returned to his home. “When I saw this house, with all the windows broken, with all the damage inside, it was more than I could really take in at that moment.”

Gone was the library of more than 5,000 books he’d amassed during the first stage of his life, his long career at the City University of New York, where he was a classics professor, dean, vice president for student affairs and the founder of the school’s Latin/Greek Institute.

Also washed away was most of the collection of carousel artifacts Moreland had assembled, markers of a lifelong passion that led him to work tirelessly to restore and save the Seaside Heights boardwalk carousel that now bears his name.

Destroyed was most of the remaining merchandise from the “Magical Carousel Shoppe,” the Seaside boardwalk business that Moreland and his partner, Elaine Egues, had operated for nearly 30 years, in what he considers his life’s second stage. Moreland had shut the business for good only about three weeks before the storm.

Moreland could not believe what had happened. Suddenly the storm was not just something he was seeing on TV, like the distant disasters which in the past had always inspired him to give donations to help those affected. Instead, this storm had right here. It had wrecked his own neighborhood.

Yet some of his treasures still remained.

On the walkway in front of his house, the tile image of a colorful carousel horse remained, embedded in the cement. And hanging from one hook inside the house, swinging in the wind that blew through the broken windows, was a glass image of another merry-go-round equine.

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Carousel survives

The historic Denzel/Loof Carousel, the 1910 merry-go-round at Seaside Heights’ badly-damaged Casino Pier, also survived the storm. Even before he was able to return to his home in Ortley, Moreland managed to make it to Seaside Heights, where he found the carousel still standing.

“I was able to get into Seaside before I got to Ortley Beach. Every horse was standing proudly, including Dr. Floyd and Elaine,” Moreland said, describing the two horses that are inscribed with his name and that of his partner of 35 years. Seeing the carousel standing comforted him and gave him hope, he said.

The carousel has been a central part of Moreland’s life for 67 years. He was just a toddler when he first rode one of its sturdy steeds during a family vacation. As a 17-year-old, he began operating the ride. “It paid my way through college; it paid my way through graduate school,” he said.

While earning his doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley, Moreland would drive cross-country in the spring to run the rotating ride, heading back to California at summer’s end. He earned $1.25 an hour and worked seven days a week. In 1971 he received his Ph.D in classics.

More than a decade later, it was Moreland who spearheaded the restoration of the carousel, after learning it was about to be dismantled and sold.

His friends and family members spent countless weekends inside the then-unheated carousel building in the off-season, painstakingly repairing more than 50 horses, and two chariots, as well as the two camels, one lion and one tiger that made up the merry-go-round’s menagerie. He and Elaine later ran the carousel shop, selling miniature carousels, painted ponies and other memorabilia.

But early in 2012, Moreland made a decision. It would the last summer for the boardwalk shop. He was getting older and Elaine, the love of his life, was now suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s.

“Elaine got sicker and sicker, and I had to be a caregiver first,” Moreland said. Elaine, who is now 80, eventually had to be moved into Reflections at Brandywine, a Brick facility on Route 88 that cares for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

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Moreland, who visits her daily, initially intended to stay at his Seventh Avenue home during Sandy. After all, he’d been at the Shore for dozens of storms.

“As we heard that the storm was approaching, I was, of course, concerned, but I always planned to stay,” he said.

His house was on the first ocean block, behind Joey Harrison’s Surf Club. Many times he’d seen the ocean wash down the street, but it had never reached his house. Storms were kind of exciting, and besides, Moreland had Coco, his 16-year-old dog, with him. He could not leave her behind.

Call to evacuate

Still, there seemed to be something different about Sandy.

“As I looked out the window from upstairs and saw the ferocity of the ocean, I began to get concerned,” he said.

Then he received a call from Reflections at Brandywine, telling him he must come to stay there. “They said, ‘It’s not an invitation. It’s an order,’ ” Moreland recalled. He left on the morning of Oct. 29, and thought he would return within a couple of days. Instead, he slept for several weeks on an air mattress in Elaine’s room, eventually renting a home in Holiday City.

After viewing the damage to his house, Moreland was unsure whether he wanted to rebuild. “My first instinct was to walk away and knock it down,” he admitted.

But his home was still structurally sound, and the upstairs remained untouched. It was actually in much better shape than many of the nearby homes. Moreland moved forward. “I decided to give a stab at it,” he said.

Only a short distance away, his beloved carousel was still standing, but would it ever turn again? No one knew for sure. There was no electricity at Casino Pier and no way to determine the extent of the damage to machine’s mechanics. The basement at Casino Pier had flooded and the 103-year-old carousel sat in the damp and dark for many months.

But when electricity was finally restored to Casino Pier shortly before Memorial Day, the carousel began to spin again. The ride, which Moreland calls “the heart and soul” of Seaside Heights’ boardwalk, was open in time for Memorial Day, when people lined up to ride it.

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“It’s fine,” Moreland said. “It’s turning proudly. It now will be the central focus, the hub of the boardwalk.” On a warm June day, he rode happily on the carousel while its Wurlitzer military band organ played a merry turn.

Moreland did not return to his house until the third week in June. As workers finished restoring cable and Internet service to his house, he sat on the front step and watched as a nearby house was demolished.

The hard drive of his computer was found rolled up inside a carpet after the storm. When it was cleaned and restored, Moreland found he had received thousands of emails inquiring about his well-being. Many people knew him and Elaine from their many years on the Seaside boardwalk, and the concern expressed by so many people touched him deeply, he said.

“We had a wonderful following,” he said of the carousel shop. “It was like a family up there.”

His neighborhood, like much of Ortley Beach, remains mostly deserted. Demolition of wrecked homes continues, alongside slow, but steady efforts at rebuilding. Some of Moreland’s neighbors have decided to walk away.

Moreland, like many in Ortley, said his community felt “left out,” as Gov. Chris Christie and President Barack Obama visited other nearby areas that in some cases were not as devastated as Ortley Beach. “I don’t think we had, as a community, the moral support here,” he said.

He is unsure if the third stage of his life will play out in Ortley after all.

“Even in the long run, I’m not convinced this is where I want to be,” Moreland said. “The most difficult thing is realizing the neighborhood will never be the same.”